The 8th Tourism Investment and Business Forum makes progress in its professional meetings programme

The 37th International Tourism Trade Fair, FITUR 2017, organised by IFEMA from 18 to 22 January of next year in Feria de Madrid, is hosting a renewed INVESTOUR. The Tourism Investment and Business Forum for Africa, which is organised jointly by FITUR, the World Tourism Organisation UNWTO and Casa África, will centre its eighth staging on promoting the sustainable development of tourism in Africa, thus joining the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development declared by the UNWTO and which is actually kicking off at FITUR. The encounter will take place on 19 January 2017.

INVESTOUR will offer high-level meetings to facilitate the dialogue on new business opportunities and cooperation for African actors and potential Spanish and international investors and collaborators.

Attending the inaugural session will be Luís Cueto, Chairman of the IFEMA Executive Committee; the Secretary-General of the UNWTO, Taleb Rifai, and the Director of this UN body’s Regional Programme for Africa, Elcia Grandcourt, together with Luis Padrón, Managing Director of Casa África. This will be followed by the presentation of the UNWTO’s Commission for Africa (CAF) by the host country, to then continue to the execution of the programme of workshops.

The sessions of round tables will offer the opportunity of exchanging points of view and of generating an interactive debate that will provide valuable information on how to increase the competitiveness and potential of African tourism on a worldwide and regional scale.

The second period of sessions will be dedicated to business-to-business (B2B) meetings. This constitutes a strategic platform for putting into direct contact the leaders of African tourism projects and potential international partners.

The morning session, together with the afternoon’s B2B meetings, offer the opportunity of directly contacting the managers of specific projects and representatives from the tourism ministries of the African countries present at the Trade Show. This configuration is ideal for national companies interested in entering the African market and also for those with an interest in gaining a general idea of the important possibilities which the African continent offers the tourism industry.

Round tables

There will be two round tables at INVESTOUR 2017. The first session, on “Technology and the design of new tourism products”, will explain how technological progress is revolutionising the worldwide tourism industry, taking travel to the next level. In Africa, innovation in tourism has to a large extent remained absent from local policies until recently. This is why African countries have begun to work on integrating it into their tourism development strategies, creating new avenues for tourism to reinforce its economic and social impact on populations, in a sustainable outlook.

The second session, “Development of capabilities and jobs for young people and women in tourism“, will revolve around job opportunities in the tourism industry, where despite decade-long efforts and significant progress, the challenges of youth and female employment continue to be considerable in Africa. In reinforcing its position, it is essential that all stakeholders work together on issues such as education and training.